by Simon Hankinson
Most countries only allow their own citizens to vote. national elections and require voters to prove their eligibility to vote with a photo ID when registering and before casting a ballot. Here in the United States, voter eligibility verification and registration are left to the states. One would hope that the federal government would be willing to aid the states, especially when it comes to preventing foreign interference, and election integrity would be a bipartisan issue.
You would think that Bill requiring U.S. states to obtain proof of citizenship before registering voters would have broad support. Such a proposal, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act (Number 8281), passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday — but with only five Democratic votes. And the Biden administration “strongly opposes it.”
Why?
White House statement is correct that “it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections” and that “making false statements about citizenship or voting illegally in an election is punishable by removal from the United States and permanent inadmissibility.”
But this is where the truth ends and manipulation begins.
First, no state requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and the documents required to vote in person vary by state.
Second, all 50 states allow non-citizens who are legally present in the U.S. to obtain a driver’s license, and in 19 states, illegal immigrants can also obtain one. The problem is that in many states, people who apply for social security benefits or a driver’s license are automatically provided voter registration forms. It’s a risky combination that encourages millions of people from outside the country to register to vote, leaving it up to their honesty to opt out. We know that some people register even though it’s illegal.
In Arizona, one county he told voters that even if their proof of citizenship could not be verified to register them to vote in state elections, they would still receive a ballot in the federal election! It is difficult to imagine how the U.S. Department of Justice or local prosecutors could find out about this, let alone prosecute them, if they were voting as noncitizens.
In California, the DMV automatically registers every customer unless they explicitly opt out. You can also register vote with a gym membership, credit card or utility bill — all of which are available to noncitizens. California officials say someone with such a low-quality ID would have to show a real government-issued ID the first time they voted. But with crowded polling places, activist local officials and paranoia about discrimination, can we be sure they actually do that?
Even if a foreigner is caught red-handed voting illegalIt’s difficult to imagine “progressive” district attorneys like Alvin Bragg in New York or George Gascon in Los Angeles, where they were prosecuted for regularly releasing repeat offenders of violence.
It’s even harder to imagine that recently questioned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, described as “he neglected his duties“The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has ordered the arrest or deportation of illegal immigrants for voting, while his president and his political party oppose any effort to verify the citizenship of registered voters and facilitate mass illegal immigration.
The White House says the SAVE Act was proposed “based on easily disproven lies” about voter fraud. In fact, there have been more than 1,513 reported cases of voter fraud in Database collected by The Heritage Foundation — and as the database’s website states, these cases represent only a fraction of actual frauds.
The White House also claims that “states already have strong safeguards in place to verify voter eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls.” That’s not true when it comes to citizenship. In any case, some states are doing better than others, according to another Heritage tool, Election Integrity Points cardto introduce.
Constant vigilance is required. Virginia removed 1,500 non-citizen voters from its rolls last year, 20 percent of whom voted illegally. In Nevada, citizens directed design aims to purge voter rolls of voters who have moved out of state or died. In North Carolina, the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project recently interviewed people living in a housing project who identified themselves as noncitizens, 10% of whom he said registered to vote. North Carolina is now considering amending its constitution to make it clear that only citizens can vote, as do six other states. Seven states already have that clear provision.
Finally, the White House states that the SAVE Act “will make it much more difficult for all eligible Americans to register to vote…” This is a fiction and the same false claim that is made about the voter ID requirement.
Numerous studiesincluding by both the National Bureau of Economic Research and the National Academy of Sciences, show that voter ID laws do not disproportionately burden any group of Americans. The SAVE Act simply requires people to provide proof of citizenship before they can vote. If presumptive citizens do not have even one proper form of identification — which must be very infrequent — the SAVE Act directs states to establish a process for determining their status.
The last three presidential elections have been close, as have many local and state elections. Members of both political parties have raised allegations of fraud. Measures to ensure the integrity of elections should be supported by all who want not only the reality but the appearance of free and fair elections.
In May, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, he said that with millions of illegal immigrants released and paroled into the country under President Joe Biden, “we now have so many foreigners in the country that if just one in 100 of them voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes.” That’s more than the margin of victory in many contests.
With the highest levels of legal and illegal immigration in the world, the United States has a constantly changing electorate. Now, as the Biden administration (possibly illegally) uses federal resources to benefit voters, registration drives In areas with enormous numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, as well as where there is mass illegal border crossing, vetting of potential voters to protect the value of U.S. citizenship is needed more than ever.
Left activists are attacking efforts to confirm voter identities, ensure exact vote counts and weed out random or fraudulent voting attempts. They say any efforts to bolster election integrity are not only pointless but also motivated by racism and xenophobia. sue state by state to stop voter ID laws and other sensible reforms that polls show most Americans agree with. It’s difficult to see why this fierce resistance is motivated other than by political expediency. But sacrificing election integrity for short-term political gain is reckless.
The electoral system that underpins our democracy should always trump party affiliation. Voters can’t just hear from their supporters that the system is free and fair; they have to see it for themselves. Common-sense election integrity measures like the SAVE Act would reduce many of the current credible reasons that lead politicians and the public to be careful that the elections are unfair, rigged, or that fraud occurred.
Instead of fighting difficult against fairness initiatives, liberals should join forces with conservatives and pass bipartisan laws at the national and state levels that make our elections a model for the world.
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Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow at the Center on Border Security and Immigration at The Heritage Foundation.
Photo “Polling Station” by Phil Ruder Licensed under CC BY 2.0.
